Art by Hugo Award winning artist Jim Burns for the second Plague Birds story "The Ever-Dreaming Verdict of Plagues." See below for more artistic interpretations of my Plague Birds universe.

Good news for fans of my Plague Birds stories: I've completed my first science fiction novel and it's set in that far future world of genetic manipulation and god-like AIs.

For those who haven't read these stories, the first one — "Plague Birds" — was published in the acclaimed British magazine Interzone, where it won the magazine's annual Readers' Poll. The story was subsequently translated into a number of languages (including Czech and Chinese) and was the subject of a well-received podcast on Dunesteef Audio Fiction Magazine.

The following year I wrote a sequel called "The Ever-Dreaming Verdict of Plagues," which was also published in Interzone. Translations of this story were published around the world while its podcast edition was named a finalist for the 2012 Parsec Awards.

My new novel is also titled Plague Birds and includes the original story (but not the "The Ever-Dreaming Verdict of Plagues," which functions as a stand-alone tale in the universe).

I'm now querying agents for the novel. So if all goes well you'll be reading about Plague Birds in the near future.

The original publication of the first "Plague Birds" story in Interzone. Cool art by Ben Baldwin, although there are artistic liberties. (Meaning no red leather skin-tight suits in my story or novel. Sorry.)

Artwork from the Chinese edition of the original Plague Birds short story. And no, the main character doesn't let her shirt fly up like that in the original story or the novel. Definitely artistic liberties at work again.